Catharine Bramkamp - Real Estate Diva 04 - Trash Out

by Catharine Bramkamp

  “I thought I took care of you,” her voice dropped an octave, which to me, sounded more menacing, certainly more dangerous.

  “Everyone did.” He gingerly touched his face.

  Her whole body stiffened. And it looked like she fully intended to carve out his heart this time, no repairs. I looked at the knife in Kimberly’s poised hand. She lunged, foot forward, weight into the lunge as if she practiced this. Which was not, as we all can agree, a good thing.

  My back was to the door; I was so engrossed in the drama before me that I didn’t hear Patrick and Carrie until they were almost on top of me.

  Carrie careened into the cellar, hooked around the barrels and almost smashed into the hard table. Her dress followed a second behind her in a swoosh of tulle.

  She caught her breath. “So it’s true.”

  Patrick followed close behind and almost knocked Carrie into the table a second time. I stepped out from my hiding place, and tried to keep either one from getting any closer to Kimberly. This was just between Mark and Kimberly. But I wasn’t entirely sure.

  “She’s got a knife!” Mark cried. “Do something, Allison, tell her that you survived, you’re getting married, it all worked out for you!”

  “Wow,” Carrie said. “He is really that stupid.”

  “Yes,” I said. “Apparently he is.” I didn’t know really who to root for, the misogynist or the mad woman. I was feeling a strong sisterhood with Kimberly, but I knew it wasn’t an appropriate sentiment to share at this time.

  “Yes,” I admitted, just because it was true. “I got over it.”

  Kimberly did not even turn around or acknowledge what I said. She was smart. She was not allowing any of us to distract her from her purpose. She’d make a great realtor. Except for the flying off the handle part. And the sharp objects. And the stalking.

  “Stay back, all of you, just stay back,” Kimberly cried. “I’ll kill him again if you come any closer.”

  “Not again,” Patrick said softly. “Kimee, not again. Let it go, it’s okay. Look, Carrie is on your side, she’s on our side. Come and meet my wife Kimee. She showed up on time, she said yes, she said I do. It turned out for me, it can turn out for you too.”

  “Don’t try to distract me Patrick,” Kimberly growled.

  “Yes Patrick, don’t make any sudden moves,” Mark echoed. It was another bad thing to say, but in his defense, what is the correct response?

  Kimberly lunged again, she nicked him, blood oozed through his white shirt.

  “Kim, Kim.” Patrick stayed focused and chanted softly. “Give me the knife, come on baby, give little brother the knife. You know you want to, come on.” He began advancing very slowly around Carrie and towards his sister.

  Kimberly shook her head, ignored her approaching brother and focused on her quarry. She took two more steps forward effectively trapping Mark in the corner where the two stacks of barrels met. Mark couldn’t get around her and there was no egress behind. It was like a Greek play, the kind that does not end well.

  “Kim, Kim.” Patrick continued approaching slowly.

  “For God’s sake get the knife!” Mark the brave, called from behind his attacker.

  “You!” Kimberly shrieked again. “You can’t get away this time.” She lunged at him again. Did she learn how to street fight in the asylum? Did they teach each other new skills? It was a cynical thought, but one I couldn’t help. She was fast and in good shape, better than the rest of us, quicker than the rest of us and with far less to lose.

  He couldn’t step back any further, he was flat up against the barrels, nowhere to go, no where to turn. Blood spread down his right arm.

  “You bastard. You left me. You left her. How many women?”

  I wondered that myself, but unlike Mark, I knew not to chime in with inappropriate questions.

  Patrick closed the gap between he and Kimberly. But his efforts were ineffective. She suddenly turned on him, the knife raised. Mark tried to scramble to safety but he had nowhere to move. I automatically glanced up at the top barrels now violently shaking with Mark’s scrambling. Carrie shrieked just as Kimberly made a downward stroke with the knife.

  Patrick yelled and lunged for his sister who howled like a banshee and turned to attack her brother with the bloody knife. Carrie would have none of that, she jumped on the table, took two long strides and launched at both Kimberly and Mark. She knocked Patrick out of the way and grabbed the knife. She slashed at Kimberly who howled in protest, I couldn’t see in the shadows if Carrie had the knife or if the knife had Carrie. Patrick yelled and plunged back into the fray. Mark yelled help just as the back door smashed open blasting all the strugglers with light. Kimberly scrambled towards Mark.

  Carrie snatched up the knife, looked at it as if it were alive and with a shudder threw it across the room. It clanged on the cement floor. She dipped back down out of my sight line to either administer to Mark or smack him for being an idiot. Patrick finally reached his sister and gripped her wrist. I could hear his labored breathing from where I stood. It took more seconds than I liked to sort out the players. Carrie slowly gained her footing and stood, looking every inch her Stephen King namesake.

  “You have the number. Call,” she instructed me.

  I nodded and fished my phone from my impossibly small beaded bag. I did have the number. We’d need an ambulance too.

  Kathleen and Claire tumbled into the scene and gasped when they saw Carrie.

  “Not again,” they groaned in unison. “Patrick?”

  “I’m fine. She may have killed him this time though.” Patrick confirmed. He peeled off his custom tuxedo jacket, a slash of red marked one sleeve, but he didn’t notice. He wadded the jacket and bent down trying to stem the blood spurting from Mark’s leg. Kathleen and her sister gently but firmly, took Kimberly’s arm. She moved with them willingly as if all the fight had drained from her.

  “Call security,” Patrick instructed his sisters.

  It would take a precious minutes for the ambulance to get to the winery. I carefully worked around the dining table to where Mark was bleeding, Carrie and Patrick valiantly tried to stem the blood flow with Patrick’s expensive jacket but their efforts were ineffectual. Blood gushed with each heart beat. I’m not an expert, but …

  “Why? Why did you leave Allison and Kimberly? Why were you such a bastard?” Carrie challenged her patient.

  “I love women. And women want weddings. So that’s what I do. I just could never go through to the end.”

  “Not a great excuse,” I said harshly.

  “It’s the only one I have,” he tried to lift his head, but it seemed too heavy, he dropped it back into Carrie’s lap. She grimaced, but didn’t pull away.

  We heard the cries and could hear guests shuffle towards the warehouse. I heard a man bellow, what’s going on here? But there was no helpful answer. Ben’s voice calmed everyone down and instructed them to return to the reception. I supposed someone should make an announcement to the guests, but we were distracted. I heard a cry and a clanging, but didn’t investigate, the all-powerful Furies were on the job, I knew they didn’t want my help.

  The EMTs roared up to the crush pad. Ben unrolled the doors and flipped on the bank of lights from that side of the large room. Red and blue lights from the ambulance scattered more red color over the warehouse.

  Carrie didn’t move away until the female EMT gently pushed her aside. She and her partner knelt over Mark. They both shook their heads.

  “Next of kin?”

  The EMT’s took Mark’s phone and Mark’s body and loaded both into the ambulance. They thankfully switched off the rolling red light.

  Carrie looked at her ruined dress and smiled ruefully. “I don’t remember reading anything in Brides Magazine about how to remove blood from a wedding dress.”

  “At least it’s not as tacky as a money dance.” Ben joined us, glanced at me, but knew who needed comforting right this minute. “And where is our latest murderer?”
/>   “My sisters took her to the office. The security should already be here.” Patrick dragged his hands through his hair, in a fine imitation of Ben’s gesture of frustration. His jacket was ruined, his party was ruined. Was his marriage, only forty minutes old, ruined as well?

  “She is insane,” Patrick explained unnecessarily. “It’s the reason Kathleen and Claire never married, certainly never will have children. And anytime we did try to marry, Kimberly managed to figure it out and show up, all three of us eventually just gave up.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me?” Carrie brushed her hands on her dress and approached her new husband.

  “That I have a crazy sister who haunts my dreams and if she can, when she can, ruin my life? I don’t think so. She almost killed her fiancé once, and now this.”

  “He was her fiancé too?” I cried.

  “Too? You were engaged to that person?” Patrick couldn’t keep the incredulous look from his face and I really didn’t blame him.

  “Yes,” I admitted. “He left me at the altar.”

  I took a deep breath. As insane as poor Kimberly was - she had done what I only fantasized doing. I respected that.

  On cue because it’s just one of those days, Claire limped from the office, even in the dim light I saw that a bruise was emerging on her white cheek.

  “She got away,” her voice was toneless.

  Patrick looked uncertainly at Carrie, who stood stock still, her white dress smeared with Mark’s blood.

  “Where?” he started. Ben glanced up either because he heard something, or because he’s prescient. He mutely pointed to something over our heads.

  “Patrick!” Kimberly swayed on the notoriously unstable catwalk that now hovered over cold, bare cement.

  “It’s not steady!” I called up.

  “I know,” she was strangely complacent, which made her all the more frightening.

  “Pat,” she called again. “I want to be with him.”

  “Sure baby, I’ll take you to him, we’ll take a trip in my car, you like my car remember?”

  “Is it that pretty red one?”

  “Yes honey.” Patrick stepped closer keeping his eyes on his sister. Ben had already moved to the back of the warehouse, I could hear his weighted footfall on the steel steps of the ladder. He wasn’t a dainty guy; cat burglar would never grace his resume, no matter how clever he was, but at least he was doing something. The rest of us could only stand and watch.

  “Yes baby, now come down so you can go for a ride in the car.”

  “No, I want to see him right now.” She shook her head; her long hair flew around her face like the old pictures of Medusa.

  “Her! Are you taking her with you?” Kimberly suddenly focused on me. Me? I’m just standing here watching waiting for the deus ex machina to arrive just in time and clear everything up. Don’t mind me, I’m just the audience.

  Claire and Kathleen gasped and moved to shield me. “No, no, Patrick will only take you, there’s only room for two in his car, Kimberly, you know that.”

  She glared at me, her tangled hair fell around her shoulders like snakes, her dress was ripped and covered in as much blood as Carrie’s. Carrie, by the way, had strategically shrunk into the shadows. She hid next to the white T-bins and folded canvasses; her dress blended nicely with the tarps and gallon buckets. But I knew from experience that she would not stay safe, nor would she stay put.

  Ben took another step.

  Carrie clearly couldn’t stand it. She began to carefully creep from the shadows, heading for Patrick, but Patrick did not hear the rustle of satin, his gaze remained trained on Kimberly. Carrie finally stood right behind him, but not touching him.

  “Come down and ride in my car.” Patrick cajoled. His voice cracked, “you know you want to, Kimberly.” He said her name in a singsong voice, one that seemed to relax her a little more. She glanced down at the bare floor. She may survive a fall, but she wouldn’t survive a straight dive, the floor was as unyielding as submerged river rocks.

  “I want to be with Mark.” Her voice was weak and uncertain. Ben stepped forward, one foot balanced on the ladder, one on the slender scaffolding. Kimberly also took another step. Her foot hovered over the empty air, right over Patrick’s head. With no warning, she stepped out and plunged off the catwalk head first. Patrick had no time to open his arms or position himself to catch her. She was just inches too far away. But in that split second between her thoughts and her action, Patrick sensed what his sister would do. He grabbed his bride and jerked her against him hiding her head against his chest, covering her ears.

  Kimberly fell hard. She connected with the floor in a terrible, sickening sound, sad and horrible in its finality. I heard Carrie’s intake of breath that seemed louder than the Furies’ screams. I opened my mouth expecting a scream, but like my worst nightmare, I had no voice. I stood as still and empty as the indifferent wine casks.

  It was so silent inside I could hear Patrick murmur into Carrie’s hair. “For better or worse?” The noise from the party outside slowly encroached, loud and boisterous.

  Carrie lifted her beautiful tear stained face. It was devoid of everything but a trace of eyeliner because she had effectively transferred all her carefully applied make up to Patrick’s once white shirt.

  “You poor man.” She reached up to stroke his face. “You poor man, all these years hiding her, taking care of her.”

  “The mad woman in the attic,” I whispered. I was suddenly, completely exhausted. I wanted to sink to the floor but it was cold and damp. Ben clambered down the metal ladder, his footsteps echoing in the big warehouse. The Furies approached the body, but he immediately held them back and quickly snapped up a tarp and tossed it over Kimberly’s inert form.

  I half expected him to comfort the sisters, but he patted each woman on the arm and strode to me in two big steps. Now it was my turn to bury my head in the bosom of a loved one. It felt good. I sighed and he gingerly stroked my stiff hair.

  “Not the ending we thought,” he said simply.

  Carrie heard him and pulled away from Patrick. “We are all in this together. But especially me and Patrick.” She took his hand and gently led him to the door of the warehouse. She pulled open the door and marched into the golden afternoon sun that surrounded their silhouettes like a halo. I blinked at the light and watched her disappear into the waiting crowd.

  “There’s been an accident,” her voice rang out clear and confident. “Can someone please call 911 and ask them to come back? There is, unfortunately, no need to give directions. Patrick and I have to go now, thank you all for coming.”

  There was a collective gasp, either from their appearance, (it’s not often the bride and groom end up looking like the finale of Zombie Nights), or from the screaming from the warehouse, or from the announcement that an ambulance was needed, again.

  The furies held hands and huddled over the body. Ben and I were effectively alone.

  “There’s a back way,” Ben whispered.

  Kathleen heard him and lifted her head. She did not release her sister’s hands. She took us in with a glance and nodded.

  Ben pulled me to the back of the warehouse and through the door that led to the crush pad. The large stemmer/crusher glistened in the late afternoon sun.

  “I shouldn’t really just leave without saying good bye,” I protested, channeling my mother.

  “Our mothers can say good by. It will give them the satisfaction of both being angry with us while performing the socially correct thing. Right now, we are doing what is right for us.” He tugged at my hand and led me around back. His truck was parked up against the vines in splendid isolation. The leaves left on the rows of vines danced in the low sun. Ben nudged the leaves aside and helped me in.

  “How did you manage to avoid the persistent administrations of the valet parking team?”

  “Bribes. Come on. Before someone catches us and kills us with small talk and questions.

  “Death by a thousand cu
ts,” I agreed.

  He loaded me and all my red satin into the cab of the truck and carefully, so not to call attention to what we were doing, pulled out to the road.

  “Are we going home?” I rolled down the window and leaned back in the seat. I would be happy to go home, any home that held Ben on a semi-permanent basis worked for me. It didn’t matter, I realized, where. The open window allowed snatches of scents: the warm vines, the sweet raisin scent of dried fruit, the light yeasty wisp of fermentation. My hair loosened in the wind. I closed my eyes and let the whole season wash over me.

  “Nope, we’re flying to Vegas.” He checked his watch. “And we just may make it out of the River’s Bend airport.” He pressed on the gas, and the rest of my elaborate hairstyle fell victim to the wind.

  “Vegas,” I repeated.

  “It solves a lot of problems.”

  I could dress in a toga.

  Be married by Elvis.

  Live happily ever after.